Today's Opinions

To the editor:
After reading the story about the pigs and law enforcement encounter, I had memories of work experiences that take the cake.
While working as an EMT in Anderson County in the 1980s, I was asked by a little old lady to get her robe. It was upstairs in a back room in a box in a stuffed closet. She was saving it to wear to the hospital when needed. She wouldn’t get on the stretcher until she had her robe.
I complied with her wishes — good thing it wasn’t a true emergency.

To the editor:
Dear Sheriff Troy Young,
As the chief law enforcement officer of Anderson County, you were required to take an oath upon entering office to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies, both foreign and domestic.
Having taken that oath, I would like to know, along with many other Anderson County residents, if you will honor your oath by refusing to enforce federal rules, regulations and directives that violate the Constitution and/or the Bill of Rights.

Column as I see ’em …
Let’s steer the mass murder conversation away from gun control and put it where it belongs: drugs.
Specifically psychotropic drugs — you know, the ones advertised on television that include a full slate of nightmarish side effects, including delusional acts and suicide.
Yet the reporting on the shootings in Colorado and Connecticut are virtually bereft of any discussion about these types of drugs, despite the constant references to both shooters having serious ongoing mental health issues.

I was walking through the Rotunda of our state’s capital right before Christmas and heard a young boy ask his father if Abe Lincoln had a cell phone — true story.
“You see, in the old days people didn’t have mobile phones,” he began to explain.
I could not pause to hear the rest. I was too struck that my past had already become someone else’s history. The young boy had the same look on his face as I did when my parents had told me about how they grew up with no television. OMG, was all I could say.

Compulsive hoarding is a health condition that has received much attention from the media in recent years. However, hoarding is not always easy to detect and may be more widespread than many believe.
Compulsive hoarding can be secretive. An individual can discreetly accumulate items over many years. Sometimes hoarding is discovered only when the individual is no longer able to live in their own home or the family cleans the home following the loved one’s death.

Well we’ve made it to the season of “ahh.” The holidays are over and we start to settle back in to some kind of routine. Our days and nights are calmer. The decorations are back in their boxes and all the trash has finally been picked up. Now, we just have to get through winter.

To the editor:
We would like to thank everyone who prepared and donated food, their time and prayers to make Christmas Day at Open Hands Pantry a huge success and blessing.
It is because of Walmart’s donations, Kroger and all the churches and people who were involved — too many to mention for the fear of leaving someone out we were able to feed 440 meals on that day.
If you have never been involved in this ministry on Christmas Day we suggest you take time out give it a try; we guarantee you will leave there blessed or maybe a different person.

To the editor:
The tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School brought out the usual hypocrisy on Capitol Hill and in the White House.
Politicians pointed fingers at everybody and everything but the contribution their bad examples make to such tragedies.
During their so-called “fiscal cliff” showdown, the juvenile conduct displayed by President Obama, other Democrats and the Republicans was not over a solution. Their childlike haggle was over a tiny fraction of the needed solution.